John Cena and Awkwafina in Paul Feig Action Comedy

There are many video video games which were was motion pictures, however Paul Feig’s newest comedy appears like a film that needs to be was a online game. After a gradual buildup lasting only a few minutes, Jackpot! erupts right into a nonstop collection of motion set items that handle the neat trick of being as humorous as they’re brutally violent. It’s all tremendously foolish however in some way it really works, because of fight choreography that will make Jackie Chan proud and the introduction of America’s premiere new comedy group, Awkwafina and John Cena.

What’s that, you ask? Awkwafina and John Cena? Effectively, sure, the diminutive, fast-talking actress is hilariously paired with the WWE star who’s in some way reworked himself into America’s most adorable massive lug. (For those who noticed his almost nude comedy bit on the Academy Awards, what I’m speaking about.) Coming throughout like a modern-day Laurel and Hardy — if that legendary display group had upped their violence quotient exponentially — the pair make this supremely dumb motion comedy extra pleasant than it has a proper to be.  

Awkwafina performs Katie, a former youngster actress well-known for her work in a tv business for canned spaghetti, who arrives in Los Angeles after a prolonged profession hiatus caring for her sick mom. Unbeknownst to her, town is now gripped with lottery fever — besides that this explicit sport entails one individual profitable a large money prize totaling billions, solely to get pursued for a day by everybody else, who can declare the cash by killing them. There are not any guidelines besides one, particularly that weapons can’t be used. Katie would have identified this if she had solely seen the movie’s opening scene, that includes a really amusing look by an ill-fated Sean William Scott.

Whereas auditioning for an appearing gig, Katie discovers a lottery card in her borrowed outfit and finds herself a winner. Since her image is instantly flashed on each cellular phone within the metropolis, she turns into the goal of everybody with whom she comes into contact, together with the opposite actresses vying for the function and, much more dangerously, a roomful of martial arts fanatics.

Simply as issues are wanting notably dire, she’s rescued by Noel (Cena), a contract operator in a dapper go well with and white socks who provides to guard her for a share of the winnings. It’s a reasonably frantic negotiation, since he presents the phrases even whereas keeping off throngs of attackers. That Cena and Awkwafina are capable of undergo their ultra-violent paces whereas concurrently delivering a gentle stream of wisecracks and one-liners is without doubt one of the movie’s chief pleasures. It’s all of the extra enjoyable as a result of Cena’s Noel comes throughout as a pleasant man, a delicate kind who sincerely needs to assist individuals but additionally occurs to have the power to pummel them into submission with out breaking a sweat.  

The remainder of the frenetically paced movie mainly performs like a live-action Woody Woodpecker cartoon, with the pair relentlessly pursued by hordes of normal-seeming residents who flip into bloodthirsty would-be assassins on the drop of a hat. Katie and Noel ultimately wind up in a panic room in Machine Gun Kelly’s home (don’t ask), however when even that seemingly secure house threatens to be breached, Noel is pressured to hunt assist from his skilled archrival, Louis Lewis (Simu Liu, wanting suitably smarmy in an all-white go well with and turtleneck), with whom he has a tortured historical past. Not surprisingly, the alliance quickly goes south.

This isn’t subtle leisure, except you rely Cena stomping his large foot on hearth on a person’s crotch and apologizing, “It’s both a harm dick or a burnt dick,” to be witty repartee. However Rob Yescombe’s screenplay options an ingenious premise and sufficient genuinely humorous strains to make the movie greater than a responsible pleasure, as when Louis tells a bedraggled Noel, “You appear like Wreck-It Ralph after a 14-hour cocaine bender.” Or when a drugged Machine Gun Kelly wakes up and asks, “Did I go to sleep within the pool once more?” (Whoever suggested the rapper-actor to make a self-deprecating cameo deserves a increase.)

By the point Jackpot! reaches its conclusion, you’ll be as exhausted because the characters, because the manic proceedings inevitably begin to really feel repetitive. However alongside the way in which there’s loads of enjoyable available, particularly in case you’re prepared to place your mind on maintain and embrace your nasty interior youngster.